One thing was clear from the moment Governor Blagojevich of
Illinois announced his choice of Roland Burris as Senator to fill
the seat vacated by Barack Obama. He had bested the Democrat
bosses at their own game. It reminds me of that joke about the
eager relatives who gather to hear the reading of the
multimillionaire’s will. The cash bequests go first, to his wife,
his kids, then distant cousins. The dead man’s brother sits there
fuming, not hearing his name called.
Finally, the lawyer arrives at the final clause. “And to my
brother, Harvey, who always kept reminding me that health is much
more important than wealth, I leave my treadmill and my exercise
clothes.”
Blago did much the same to Reid and Pelosi and the rest of those
phonies. You say integrity is better than horse trading? Fine,
here’s some integrity: choke on it!
Which is not to say he is the good guy and they are the bad guys.
Nah, Blago himself has fast become the poster child for Democrat
corruption, and deservedly. My point is those critics, the Reids
and Pelosis and Schumers, are just as dirty, except they exercise
greater subtlety. They all conduct business by some degree of a
pay-to-play standard and not a single one of them would sound
like Lord Fauntleroy if you got to hear them wiretapped.
The Bible used an interesting strategy to diminish this
temptation. The law, as explained in the Talmudic tradition, was
to give a lump sum gift from the public treasury to an incoming
king or high priest sufficient to make him wealthy. Afterward, he
received a reasonable salary, but the theory was that having the
sizeable nest egg would help him resist temptation. Today the
cost of campaigning is so high even wealthy and generous
candidates find they cannot count on their own funds to get them
through.
Democrats are by definition better positioned to get campaign
donations, or real graft, simply because they are happier
funneling government money to whomever or wherever. Republicans
who mostly run on tickets of cutting spending have to make a more
intellectual argument to a donor: elect us and we will create a
better economic climate for you to make your own money. When an
economy is bad under a Republican President, that argument
disappears too.
When his buddies turned on Blagojevich, the Governor fired back
by lampooning their own system. He gave them the one guy who owed
them nothing, who has no connections, who for better or for worse
will owe nobody but Blago himself. They got honest government in
a much bigger dose than they prescribed, and the taste is bitter
on their tongue.
But there is also a great subplot to this story that everyone
missed. This involves Dianne Feinstein sending Barack Obama a
message of her own.
At first Obama was angling to discredit Blagojevich in a way that
would leave Obama’s people in the position of kingmaker for that
Senate seat. The combination of him being the honeymoon President
and the most successful Illinois political figure would give
Obama the last word on “Who’s sitting in my seat?” When Blago
aced him by picking Burris, the President-elect still tried to
keep a grip on that plum. He made noises backing the Senate in
its determination to bar the door.
By this point some of the sharper Washington operators, most of
my fellow columnists included, could see the impossibility of the
Senate Democrats sticking to their position. They were being
forced to push out a decent guy because he had been sent by a
creepy guy, like sending Harry Truman back to Prendergast. On top
of that, they were evicting the only black Senator. Burris, for
his part, said the admirable thing: “I can’t help what my
supporters say, but I have never made my political career be
about race.”
Still, the Senators were putting up a united front. Here is where
Feinstein made her move. Earlier in the week Obama had nominated
Leon Panetta to head the CIA. He had done so without consulting
Feinstein and her Senate Intelligence Committee. So the senior
Senator from California decided to school the incoming
whippersnapper. She stepped out and told a press conference she
thought the law was on the side of Burris. This broke the wall of
resistance and started a process to inevitably get Mr. Burris his
seat.
Washington isn’t Hawaii, Mister President. Here we don’t shave
our chests and surf. Our local local sport is called hardball.
